Edizione 2022

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“The most dangerous thing to do is to stand still”. This quote by William S. Burroughs inspired the thread of the 19th edition of Festival della Mente: movement. Standing still often means being afraid of any positive change, so the word movement linked to our festival underlines the dynamism and the richness coming from cultural excitement. The vital combination between humanities and scientific disciplines creates a unique, indivisible knowledge.

Through the concept of movement, the festival inquiries into the most urgent topics of our contemporaneity, as well as into the big challenges we must expect in the future: besides the refugee emergency broached in the opening lecture by Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, we will speak about environment, health, war, the Net, teenagers – for we truly believe that in order to solve problems, we first need to be aware of them.

I do hope that the beauty of literature, science, art and history told and shared by the words of our passionate and competent speakers, as well as the festive atmosphere of our festival, will help us all set in motion new energies and hopes to change our society and to build a different world.

I express my gratitude to the promoters of the festival, Fondazione Carispezia with president Andrea Corradino, and the Municipality of Sarzana with Mayor Cristina Ponzanelli, because they still believe that culture is the very heart of growth, development, change and cohesion of a community and of its territory. I would also like to thank the staff, all the collaborators, speakers and volunteers for both their energy and enthusiasm with which, year after year, they greatly contribute to the realization of Festival della Mente.

Benedetta Marietti
Director of Festival della Mente/span>